"Stand" Over Your Horse and Ride

It's only been recently that I've begun to reconsider the idea of "sitting" on my horse when I ride. Sitting implies that your legs are out in front of you with knees bent at a 90 degree angle, feet way out in front of your hips. Your tendency is to collapse your upper back (looking for something to lean back on) and to allow the chair to absorb all of your weight, while you remain immobile, looking for a place to rest. Sitting is an activity for spectators.

Riding on the other hand requires quite a bit of participation. And when you are doing it correctly, involves more of a "stance" or position or bearing of the body while standing. Yes, standing! In martial arts, the "horse stance" is taught to students as a means of gaining stability and feeling grounded.

A correct stance should line up your skeleton so that your body is supported without using your muscles, which are used to move particular parts of your body. Imagine yourself standing on the ground, hips slighlty bent, knees and ankles soft and flexible, your skeleton lined up with the natural curve of your neck inward (looking from the side), your thorax or upper back curved softly outward and your lower back curved inward with an imaginary tail coming out the back and touching the ground like a kangaroo or dinosaur. Your feet are equally weighted and have the sensation of standing in soft, wet sand.

The feeling of stability is effortless and can be maintained for long periods of time. Your hip, knee and ankle joints can absorb motion if you choose to go down to pick something up or bring your body to an erect position. We are designed to use our skeleton as the building blocks of a very stable structure that has an amazing ability to move in many directions and to use the attached arms and legs to create even more motion.

Why then, do we put ourselves on a horse and immediately expect the experience to be one of passenger and transporter. Some horse trainers even have a "passenger lesson" as part of their program. It focuses on having the horse walk, trot or canter in a controlled environment with no contact with the reins from the rider and was intended to teach the horse to move forward calmly and consistently at the same gait and speed, interrupted only by the rider's one rein flex to slow or stop the horse when he incorrectly speeds up or use of legs/hand held crop/whip/spanker to increase speed if horse slows or stops before being asked.

It implied that the rider had no part in the exercise and was simply "sitting" on the horse, when in fact, the trainer who demonstrated this exercise was always correctly balanced and stable over the center of their horse, moving fluidly with a following seat, joints flexed and relaxed, absorbing the motion. BEAUTIFUL! Unfortunately, none of that is mentioned to the student who would then attempt to duplicate this exercise, sitting unbalanced, rigid and tense, bouncing out of the saddle, constantly wondering why her horse would either speed up or stop very shortly after the exercise began. How many times are we told that it's the horse's fault and we just need to pull more, kick more or use different bits to correct our horse's behavior.

Think about how stable you would be if you put yourself on a horse the same way you'd sit in a chair at the kitchen table. Not bad, as long as you don't move. But what happens when the horse begins to move off. To avoid falling back, we grab onto the reins, push our feet forward into the stirrups, stiffening our hips, knees and ankles and as we begin our trot it feels like we're sitting on top of a jackhammer. Is it any wonder that riders develop back and knee problems. We are told to put our toes out, bring our toes in, round your back and push from the withers, arch your back and sit up, stand in your stirrups and push up from the stirrups to post and all different painful and unbalanced activities that use muscles for support instead of our well designed skeleton.

Next time you get on to ride, try "standing" on your horse. Allow yourself to come up off the saddle and use your feet in the stirrups as the ground and flex your hips, knees and ankles just enough to remain upright without ANY TENSION in the muscles, period! With someone walking your horse as a helper, maintain the position by adjusting your body until you are stable again, using no muscle effort to remain upright. Feel how secure and grounded it feels and how easy it is to resume this position as your seat bones rest on the saddle and how quickly you can rise first to a light or "half seat" and then back to your full seat contact. If you were to remove the horse from under you, you would be able to maintain the position without falling forward or back. Try that while using the "chair" position.

Riding is dynamic-always prepare your balanced body and you'll never think of it as sitting on a horse again.